LostInTechnology

How To Upgrade Your MacBook Hard Drive – Part 3

Posted on 01. Aug, 2009 by Douglas Reynolds in How To

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Last time, I completed detailing the steps needed to clone a disk image to an external drive using SuperDuper.  The process was quite seamless and very simple, SuperDuper did a great job and stands up to its name.  We ended up doing some general comparisons between the old and new drive and are now ready to remove the new drive from the external enclosure, remove the old drive from a MacBook, and install the new drive in its place.  We’ll then boot up with the new drive to see how it went.

What You Will Need

• A penny
• A small phillips screwdriver (#1)
• A Torx t-8 screwdriver
• A grounding strap

Preparation

At this point, you may wish to print off these steps as you may need them while your computer is down for this process.  If you have another computer available, then be sure to navigate here so these steps will be available to you during the drive swap.

At this time, close all running applications, if you have changed any important files since performing the drive clone then your external drive will be out of date.  Your options are to run another backup, or to save the work that has changed, using TimeMachine or maybe a thumb drive.  Be sure to eject the external drive from within Finder, or from the icon on your desktop, clicking on the eject button next to the external drive (named whatever you named it in the erase/partitioning process).

Ejecting the External Drive

Once any changes that need to be saved are stored safely and the external drive is ejected, go ahead and shut down.

Removing The External Drive From Enclosure

In my article, Setting Up An External Drive, I detailed the process of installing a hard drive into an external enclosure.  Refer to that article and reverse the steps in order to detach your drive from its external enclosure.

Removing The Internal Drive

With the MacBook shut down and disconnected from power supply, turn the notebook upside down with front edge facing you.  Find the battery panel latch and, with a penny, turn the latch to unlock the battery panel.

Unlatching the Battery Panel

Remove the battery panel and set off to the side, if you are unsure how to do this, please see MacBook: How to remove or install the battery.  Using a small Phillips screwdriver, remove the L-shaped bracket by removing 3 screws and beginning at the longer end of the bracket, pull it toward the front edge and carefully lift out and set aside.

You may notice to small levers which pop out when the L-bracket is removed, these are the memory release levers.  If you are replacing your RAM at this time as well, be sure to refer to this article: MacBook: How to install memory.

Removing the L-Bracket

Be sure to be grounded with a grounding strap and also, touching any of the metal inside the notebook will discharge any static, such as touching the L-bracket.  On the left is where the hard drive is located, the factory drive will have a plastic tab which can be used to pull the drive from its bay.  Carefully pull on the tab to remove the drive from its bay.

Locating the Drive Pull Tab

Removing the Drive

Remove The Drive Bracket

Attached to the old drive is a bracket which is screwed into the edges of the drive with 4 Torx t-8 screws.  Remove the 4 screws connecting the bracket and remove the bracket from the old drive.  The bracket has affixed to it the tab that is needed to remove the drive from its bay, so we will want to reinstall the bracket on our new drive.

Removing/Replacing Drive Bracket

Installing The Drive Bracket

Reverse the bracket removal procedure by placing the bracket on the new drive, ensure that the pull tab is not folded between drive and bracket and that the tab is facing the rear of the drive (away from the interface connectors).  Insert the 4 Torx screws and tighten until snug.

Installing The New Drive

Setting the old drive off to the side, install the new drive, oriented just the same as was the previous one.  Carefully seat the new drive into the bay by pressing on the edge and pushing toward the edge of notebook, away from battery bay.

Re-Assembly

Re-install the L-bracket by carefully inserting the short end first, then pushing the longer end into place.  Insert the 3 screws and tighten them just snug to secure the L-bracket.  Replace the battery panel into its position.  If you are unsure how to do this, please see MacBook: How to remove or install the battery.

Booting Up

At this point, ensuring that the battery is securely latched in place using our penny, it is now time to fire up our new drive as our boot disk for the first time.  Power up and be patient, if all has gone well, your computer should boot as normal with all of your directories, files, and settings in order.

Congratulations are in order, enjoy all of that available space that you now have for having upgrading your drive.

(By) Douglas Reynolds is an application developer, holds a degree in Software Engineering, and owns an independent Flex application development consulting company.  He maintains a personal and technology blog located at dougrdotnet.  Find him on Twitter @dougrdotnet and LinkedIn.

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• How To Upgrade Your MacBook Hard Drive – Part 1
• How To Upgrade Your MacBook Hard Drive – Part 2
• How To Set Up An External Drive Enclosure
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Tags: drive, hard drive, Mac, Replace Drive, upgrade